Practice less – there is a much easier and much joyful way to improve your dancing. This post is written primarily for the male dancers, but I am sure ladies can benefit from it as well. In order to learn more, while practicing less, you will have to dance a lot. I mean a lot! The more the better. If you have milongas in your community every day, and you have time, be there. Dance!
Tango dancers are like airplane pilots – in their license it is not written how many years since they got their license, but how many hours they spend flying. If you are dancing tango what matters is how many hours you spend on the dance floor.
He was a tall German guy, quiet and very polite. He was certainly over 60.
“Wow!”, that was all she said after the dance with him.
Her boyfriend and I were curious why she was so amazed. I mean, we didn’t notice that he was doing something special. But, she told us a completely different story… Well, she didn’t! She just told us that he was doing something special, but she couldn’t explain what.
“But he does nothing. Just walking and some small sidesteps,” we argued.
“Yes, he does… and they are amazing!” she smiled.
Later on, we find out that he was a very experienced dancer. He had just one year of tango classes in the beginning, but he has traveled to tango events and dances with top dancers almost every weekend for the last 20 years.
Yes, you can become a good dancer just by dancing more, I concluded.
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In my last post I gave advice to the male dancers that they should dance more and practice less. In this article, I will give you some guidance that can help you learn more just by dancing more.
1. Polish your moves – Dancing makes it perfect. The more you dance the smoother it gets. Whenever you dance at milongas use just the moves you already know. Doing so gets you two benefits: first, by constant repetition, you learn your moves better; and, second, by avoiding new moves, you avoid being indecisive and making mistakes.
Dancing only the steps you are comfortable with will make your style simple and clean. Trust me, this way the ladies will like your dancing more.
The ambition to be creative and trying experiments is the biggest enemy of every good dancer. Of course, there will be a time for you to express your creativity, but milongas are not the place.
The non-professional dancers (milongueros, those who are social dancers) are not artists – their artistic ambitions usually end up as very bad dancing. Rarely among us are the super-talented guys who have the abilities to become tango artists – and they belong to the stage. We, the mortals, should stick to our guns and dance simply, focusing on what really matters – the enjoyment of connection and musicality.
2. Conquer your style – The repertoire you have, the steps you already know are your territory. Be the king: rule with confidence.
Know a few steps, but know them well. Dancing with few steps does not mean being boring.
When dancing a lot, you discover variations in the moves you do. In time you will learn to add different ‘flavors’ to the same steps. Just like we do with the words: you can say the same word with different emotion and it can mean different things. So, if you add variety in the way you use the same steps – simple dancing should not feel simple at all.
Knowing the variations in the ways you execute the same moves will make your dancing beautiful, no matter if you are with a beginner or an advanced dancer. Men who are watching you dancing will not understand what you do: because when we watch most of the time we see WHAT people do. On the other hand, the ladies in your embrace have their ways of feeling you. They feel HOW we do things.
3. Baby steps – Do not bite off more than you can chew. We all want to learn more and learn fast. As a result we end up with material we can not learn without spending hours of practicing. That is the nature of learning new movements: the more you repeat a move – the better you becoming at executing it. Your neural connections are being strengthened and you do the moves with less focus and effort.
Our brain does not ask if the movement we learn is correctly executed or not – it imprints the way we do it. Later on, when we learn something wrong, it is much harder to un-learn it. This is why I always insist that my students learn slowly, to take just small steps. In time, their knowledge will explode, they will learn much faster than others who tried to take big steps.
So, my advice for learning by dancing in milongas is – take it slow. Add small adjustments, little additions to your already existing repertoire. Follow your gut feeling and you will end up creating a unique style that will express your personality.
The form you have selected does not exist.
4. Use your imagination – One of the most underrated ways of learning is by watching. Using the brain’s mirror neurons we can accept new knowledge almost the same way as by practicing it ourselves. Studies showed that basketball players practicing three point shoots had similar improvement to the ones who just imagined that they practiced.
How to use this in your dancing? When watching videos determine what style you want to adopt for what kind of music. Say to yourself “I want to dance vals as Tete” and watch him dancing valses. Next time when at milonga and dancing vals try to dance like he does. Of course, you will stick to your old repertoire and your dancing will basically be the same, but there will be something more. Namely, you will start adjusting your musicality and your movements to be more similar to what Tete does and in time this will develop a completely new approach to your dancing.
5. Dance in your head – Dance in your head whenever you have a chance. I do it before I sleep. I close my eyes and I dance in my head. I imagine I am at a milonga with my favorite dancer and I dance to some of my favorite orchestras. I use just my repertoire as much as I can, and sometimes I feel how I need to add something new to interpret the music better. This helps me determine what new skills I need to develop.
This trains your brain and expands your musicality. Later on, when you are at the milonga, some of these ideas for musicality will influence your movements and, as a result, you learned just by imagining.
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As much as I like the whole Tango universe with every possible vision within, I’m going to contradict your little story here. And this for two reasons; The first is, and it’s my main rule as a teacher and in life coach, “question yourself if what you are saying, “is it true”? Reality is only true if it “works”. And i can not agree with your vision at all. The reason is simple. In order to master something, that can be a step, an adorno, a movement, etc. you have to put in the work. Which is, discovering yourself, in this very case of mutual interest in Tango, your mind, your body and your figures or sequences. Argentine Tango is no exception to the rule when it comes down to learning, incorporating and mastering. Just as any other activity, you learn in school and without doing the home work, you’re not getting through your exams or your graduation.
As a teacher and dancer for over more than 18 years, on various continents, and the last 5 years in Buenos Aires, knowing that many are called, few are chosen/succeeding, i can tell you, the ones who are succeeding, are the ones you cross in the doorway entering the dancing / practice studio, soaked in sweat of hours and hours training. I have not learned one aspect of dissociation, mechanisms of communication, an enrosque or my energy management, just by going more to milonga’s. In fact, you learn very little in a milonga, basically it is only repeating what you have learned, mainly fixed into habitual patterns. Only at an higher advanced level, when you know which tools you have and how to use them, that improvisation and new creativity pops up. But the majority of the dancers, are just never getting to that level. It is utterly impossible in our current methodologies, based upon figures and sequences, while true evolution can only occur when you face all aspect of a Tango dancers, which are in first instance, presence, focus, concentration of the mind, mechanisms of communication and movement in the body to which an creation of figures and sequences follow as a natural result.
Secondly, this writing of yours confirms a habit people should maintain. Like, this is your toolbox and you have to go working/dancing a lot in order to improve. While not knowing what’s in the toolbox or how to use it. It is insanity to think like that way and it has the effect that people are keeping on believing in a vision for years and years. That Tango needs time, it needs to ripe or it will come eventually by itself. Tango needs the time you put in it, than it ripens while doing and repeating it and it certainly won’t come by itself. True work needs to be done, and that is quiet the opposite of what you described. It keeps people years and years into their habitual patterns without really improving, even worse, without even developing their potentials. And, we as teachers just don’t have the right to do so.
Any advanced dancer/teacher will only confirm that you have to put in the work. And this comes with one of my favorite lines “if you can’ t do it individually, you surely can’t do it together. It is great time we shift our thinking to practicing. Because millions of words will make no difference on the dance floor, every day half an hour practice on the other hand,….leads to mastery of the movement. We should start organizing practice sessions, just like we had those aerobic classes in the 80’s (people would actually learn something about the differences in orchestras and their rhythms) where movements are explained, shown and repeated until they are incorporated, than and only than, they become a tool to use in their dancing.
Hey Wes, thank you for the effort you put in this comment… I really appreciate that.
I gave my answer to your comment in this article:
https://tangomentor.com/visions-of-tango/
“Your neural connections are being strengthened and you do the moves with less focus and effort.”
You are one of the few people that mention the importance of the brain in dancing tango, or any dance.
All sensory impulses flow through the brain.
Yes, Frederic. I am so disappointed when I see that many people think that the dance happens in the body. It actually happens in our hearth (actually it is the brain).
I have to say it’s all case specific and does NOT apply to most dancers. Dancing more sometimes only reinforces bad habit until it is too late to change.
It could be true that doing fewer step but doing them well works for some leaders. But I have to say. There are way too many leaders that danced a lot of 20 years and stayed just as bad as they were 20 years ago. And sadly enough, women still dance with them and compliment these leaders because it is better than warming the bench all night long.
Hi Juan Pablo, thanks for the comment.
You are absolutely right. As I said:
“Our brain does not ask if the movement we learn is correctly executed or not – it imprints the way we do it. Later on, when we learn something wrong, it is much harder to un-learn it. This is why I always insist that my students learn slowly, to take just small steps. In time, their knowledge will explode, they will learn much faster than others who tried to take big steps.”
And it works. I don’t like to talk about other teachers, but it is very important for the teachers to give the right knowledge – to show them HOW, not only WHAT. The point is to teach them to catch a fish, not to give them one 🙂 If a language teacher gives his students the rules, they will know how to create sentences themselves. Only a bad teacher makes his students learn sentences by heart.
If a student is prepared like this, there is nothing that can stop him gaining new knowledge while dancing – and do it in a right way.
Excellent post! Thank you, I have not read a viewpoint such as this. So, a question: what does one do when, while perfecting one’s moves, a follower says, “Is that all you know?” or “Can you do more, I’m bored.” End the tanda?
Hi Randall, thank you for commenting.
The situation you are talking about is very unfortunate. As I can see, there are two factors:
1. As I mentioned in the article, when the dancer enrich his repertoire with subtle variations in the way he does the moves – a few steps can feel like more steps. Variety doesn’t necessarily comes from WHAT one does, but from HOW he does it.
2. If she can not feel this variety this means she is focused only on WHAT, and in this case she is probably focused on exhibitionist way of dancing – in which I am not interested because I feel it as superficial and emotionless… People dance the way they are 🙂
One more thing, if she addresses a dancer with these questions someone should teach her that it is impolite and offending. If she see his dancing too simple, she should not dance with him. Offending is never an option.
I love this blog and I respect the effort of his writing. What I’m thinking about this subject is that I have seen tangueros that fit David’s experience … people who dance tango for years, but they did not only make any progress, they are are routinely avoided by women.
There are others, as Ivica says, who are making progress only by dancing in the milongas. In my opinion, it is a very individual matter. Someone who is talented in a movement, dancing, only the following tips listed in the text will surely advance (of course, if they mastered the basics of the tango). Someone will only make a progress in tango with the control of an experienced tango instructor plus dancing in the milongas.
“When dancing a lot, you discover variations in the moves you do.” Yes, I agree…But, sometimes, trying new variations of the same steps can also be daunting, as if you tried a new step during the milonga. In my opinion, it is necessary to try new things in the course of the milonga ‘to the limit not to overburden a partner and loose the charm of dancing-cautiously and carefully… And if we do not have success in this, we have to postpone it for another time, when we “absorb” this step better.
Further, I understand what you mean, Ivica, about the “exhibitionist way of dancing”. I heard a million times that dancing tango we are expressing of what we are. So people have different characteristics, some are more or less inclined to exhibitionism… Well, if that person and partner enjoying in it, (and do not disturb the ronda by the way), I really have nothing against it.
Next, you said that this form of dance is superficial and the emotionless for you, but It does not have to be for them… On the contrary, it may be very deeply emotional to them. People dance the way they are, right? 🙂
And you are here to determine that … ok, if you say so … at the end, your blog – your rules …
love this blog and I respect the effort of it’s writing. What I’m thinking about this subject is that I have seen tangueros that fit David’s experience … people who dance tango for years, but they did not only make any progress, they are routinely avoided by women.
There are others, as Ivica says, who are making progress only by dancing in the milongas. In my opinion, it is a very individual matter. Someone who is talented in a movement, dancing, only by following tips listed in the text will surely make some progress (of course, if they mastered the basics of the tango). Someone will only make a progress in tango with the control of an experienced tango instructor plus dancing in the milongas.
“When dancing a lot, you discover variations in the moves you do.” Yes, I agree…But, sometimes, trying new variations of the same steps can also be daunting, as if you tried a new step during the milonga. In my opinion, it is necessary to try new things in the course of the milonga – to the limit not to disturb a partner and loose the charm of dancing – cautiously and carefully… And if we do not have success in this, we have to postpone it for another time, when we “absorb” this step better.
Further, I understand what you mean, Ivica, about the “exhibitionist way of dancing”. I heard a million times that dancing tango we are expressing of what we are. So people have different characteristics, some are more or less inclined to exhibitionism… Well, if that person and partner enjoying in it, (and do not disturb the ronda by the way), I really have nothing against it.
Next, you said that this form of dance is superficial and the emotionless for you, but It does not have to be for them… On the contrary, it may be very deeply emotional to them. People dance the way they are, right? 🙂
And you are here to determine that … ok, if you say so … at the end, your blog – your rules …
I see tango dancers that have been dancing for years they had lessons in the beginning from so called teachers or lessons from pretty good teachers but didn’t continue to advance and I’m just talking about simple basics of tango. A great number of them consider themselves expert dancers and they don’t realize how bad they really are. I agree with lots of dancing and fewer lessons IF you understand the basics and in my world learning the basics properly can take years.
You are right David. After writing my post “Four ways to lead better” I read some comments on Facebook where men find my advice “The best way to become better leader is to dance a lot, not to practice a lot” as an excuse for not practicing at all.
This is why I decided to write this article, where I will explain what it takes for a dancer to improve his dancing without practicing, only by going on milongas.
I believe that if a dancer has a right mindset – meaning, if he is dancing for the reason tango was born last century, namely, to conquer the heart of the woman – than even without a good teacher, he will become a good dancer just by accumulating hours of dancing. If he cares for the heart of the woman in his embrace – he will inevitably discover ways to become pleasant partner.
Nice article.
But “polish”??
polish ˈpɒlɪʃ/ verb
make the surface of (something) smooth and shiny by rubbing it.
The kind of dancing “polish” brings to my mind is the kind I see during those in-milonga commercial breaks.
Thanks for the comment Chris.
Commercial breaks? What do you mean?
My point was this: by repeating the same pattern more times one is able to execute it with less effort, with better precision, smoother and with much more focus on emotion. This is what I mean when I say “polish” the dancing.
> Commercial breaks? What do you mean?
The milonga organiser asks everyone to clear the floor and watch a couple of dance instructors show off the steps they’re currently peddling in their classes.
> My point was this:
I got your point, thanks. My point was that ‘polish’ refers to an effect on the surface only. For appearance only.
I see, but what would you use to say “make the moves smoother”?
smooth /smuːð/ verb
🙂